1. Christian Worship in the Fifth Century.--Public worship everywhere assumed a form more calculated for show and for the gratification of the eye. Various ornaments were added to the sacerdotal garments in order to increase the veneration of the people for the clerical order. The new forms of hymns, prayers and public fasts, are not easily enumerated. * * * In some places it was appointed, that the praises of God should be sung perpetually, day and night, the singers succeeding each other without interruption; as if the Supreme Being took pleasure in clamor and noise, and in the flatteries of men. The magnificence of the temples had no bounds. Splendid images were placed in them; and among these * * * the image of the Virgin Mary, holding her infant in her arms, occupied the most conspicuous place. Altars and repositories for relics, made of solid silver if possible, were procured in various places; from which may easily be conjectured, what must have been the splendor and the expense of the other sacred utensils.--_Mosheim_. 2. Martyr Worship (3rd century).--When Gregory [surnamed Thaumaturgus on account of the numerous miracles he is said to have wrought--born in Pontus, in the second decade of the third century] perceived that the ignorant and simple multitude persisted in their idolatry, on account of the sensitive pleasures and delights it afforded, he allowed them in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs, to indulge themselves, and give a loose to pleasure, (i.e., as the thing itself, and both what precedes and what follows, place beyond all controversy, he allowed them at the sepulchres of the martyrs on their fast days, to dance, to use sports, to indulge in conviviality, and do all things that the worshipers of idols were accustomed to do in their temples, on their festival days), hoping that in process of time, they would spontaneously come over to a more becoming and more correct manner of life.--Nyssen's Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus. 3. On the Continuance of Spiritual Gifts.--The affliction of devils, the confusion of tongues, deadly poisons and sickness [all of which were to be overcome by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit] are all curses which have been introduced into the world by the wickedness of man. The blessings of the gospel are bestowed to counteract these curses. Therefore, as long as these curses exist, the promised signs [Mark xvi: 17, 18] are needed to counteract their evil consequences. If Jesus had not intended that the blessings should be as extensive and unlimited in point of time as the curses, he would have intimated something to that effect in his word. But when he makes a universal promise of certain powers, to enable every believer in the gospel throughout the world to overcome certain curses, entailed {176} upon man, because of wickedness, it would be the rankest kind of infidelity not to believe the promised blessing necessary, as long as the curses abound among men.--Orson Pratt.